White wine is the wine everyone loves. From dry to sweet, the range of flavours is arguably wider than it is for reds. If you want to try and convert a non-drinker, you should start with a good bottle of soft and fruity white wine.

A few facts on white wine you may not know:

White wines are not always made from white grapes, instead, they’re often made from crushed red grapes. Have you ever noticed that the pulp of a grape is mostly uncoloured? Grape juice is usually yellowish to translucent. Bottled grape juice is only red because consumers expect it to be. Red wineof course, is naturally red as the colour comes from the skin of the grapes, but only when solid parts are left in the juice for a while. Most champagnes are made from red (or pink) grapes.

Finings are substances used to get rid of all the organic compounds in white wine, “gluing” it together. Until recently, winemakers were using egg white, milk and even blood for the clarification process.

White wines can rarely be safely kept for more than 5 or 6 years, unlike most red wines, unless they are rich in residual sugars or made in a specific way. The “Vin Jaune” (yellow wine) made in the French eastern mountains of Jura spends 6 years in a barrel and can then be kept bottled for decades. Sweet Bordeaux wines like Sauternes are a safe long term investment.

The coldest wine producing regions in Northern Europe are mostly known for their white wines. Chardonnay varieties are one of the most versatile and can be found in the warmest wine producing regions in Australia as well as in the coldest regions of France.

We often think of red wines when it comes to the most expensive bottles in the world, such as Romanée-Conti (Burgundy) or Château Petrus (Bordeaux). It is less known that in the same price range you can find white Riesling from the Mosel region in Germany. The most expensive vintage ever sold was from the Egon Muller property for £13,110 per bottle.

If you’re looking for white wines with better value, you’re in the right place.